Lynda Jackson, superintendent of Covington Independent Schools, checks her calendar as she talks on a cell phone in the lobby of John G. Carlisle Elementary School.

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With just days before Kentucky's new high school dropout law takes effect, dozens of school districts are preparing to increase their mandatory attendance age to 18 and seize on state grant money that has been promised to help plan for the change.

But some districts, including Northern Kentucky's largest, are in no rush to increase the compulsory attendance age; they say more long-term funding is needed and districts should be allowed to offer more innovative programs to get students ready for life after high school.

"In a lot of cases, it is a funding challenge because some of those ...